AU: Games
by The Pyrat
Summary: With LA behind them, Matt and Mello are living a life on the road, finally freed of all boundaries. But when threatening messages are left written in blood, it turns out the LA murderer may not be so far behind as they thought... Sequel to AU: Face
1. Chapter 1

_Warnings: Spoilers for the whole series, language (maintains PG-13 level), hints toward shonen-ai, and drug references. Also, no offense is meant to any group of anything._

_Wow, it's been so long since I submitted, I'm sorry! I had this sequel half-finished and then my hard-drive died on me, and with it went all my saved stories. 100 dollars later I got myself a new one, and since then I've been struggling to get over having to redo all my work and rewrite. At any rate, the sequel is at last nearly done, and here is the first chapter. Count on the action picking up in Chapter 2 :)_

_I'm a bit more nervous submitting this time. You've all been so kind writing reviews for the first part of this, "Face", and I'd just like to say I really appreciate it and I'm so glad you enjoyed reading it. I really hope this sequel lives up to your expectations and is as good as the first._

_Mello, Matt, L, Near, Kira/Light and the idea of Death Note belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata._

_Lyrics to the song Can't Take Me belong to Bryan Adams. Listen to it. Seriously._

_Arik, Matthew, and Airetsyh (I pronounce it air-et-sigh) were created by me._

* * *

"So, what did you think of that one?"

"It was alright I suppose. A seven."

"Mello, you rate them _all _sevens. Come on, that was the best sunset we've seen so far!"

"It wasn't all that great."

Matt sat up beside me from where he'd been laying on the Camaro, shaking his head. "You're never going to be pleased are you?"

I grinned up at him, my hands folded behind my head as I rested against the still-warm hood. "I didn't say I wasn't pleased. I'm not ecstatic about it, if that's what you're hoping for. Don't count on that happening, Matty-boy."

The sun disappeared completely at last, and with it went the purples and reds of the day's sunset. As stars flickered into sight and night set on the desert, we were still miles from any town, pulled over on the side of an empty highway with nothing but the Camaro as a bed for the night. I suppose I didn't really mind. I wasn't minding about a lot of things lately. It was kind of nice, relaxing during the day and letting Matt drive wherever the heck he wanted, while I just sat back and watched the sand and cactus go by. I'd never thought I'd actually enjoy myself doing something like this, but quite a bit had changed in the five days since we'd left LA.

…

It didn't take long after we first left for me to wonder why the hell I'd ever given in and gotten in the car. The case wasn't solved, some psychopathic killer was still on the loose, and I was going to go drive off like I didn't have a care in the world? Life didn't work that way for me. The problem was Matt seemed determined to drag me across the U.S, and certainly wasn't going to let me out of the car prematurely. No matter how much I yelled and threatened to strangle him in his sleep, nothing fazed him. He just laughed at me.

Our first day out we drove straight through the night and on through the day. We didn't really have any particular place to go, which drove me crazy for a while. I wasn't used to not having a goal, having something to do. "Bored" wouldn't quite be the word for it, but I just couldn't stand to sit still for that long. I felt like I should have been doing something useful, but what was there to do?

Right. Nothing. Absolutely _nothing_.

We stopped everywhere that happened to catch Matt's fancy, whether that be some run-down pawnshop with an owner that didn't speak a bit of English or a pricey restaurant where everyone looked down their noses at us, the trashy freak-show kids that happened to pop in and ruin their egotistical snobbery. Matt had a credit card he seemed determined to max out, and one of the first things he bought with it was a little disposable camera.

"And what's that for?" I'd said as he came out of the gas station with it, struggling to rip it from the plastic packet it was wrapped in. I took out a pocket knife and handed it over to him so he'd quit trying to tear the thing open with his teeth. "You thinking of taking up scrap booking?"

"This," he said, waving it in front of my face once it was finally free of its bindings. "Is to chronicle your transformation."

I raised one eyebrow skeptically. "Did you inject me with something I didn't know about? Sorry Matt, but there's no such thing as the incredible Hulk."

He frowned. "Not that kind of transformation, smart-ass." He pulled up the camera, snapping a picture of me before I could get in a word of protest. "Now, when that photo is printed, you will be looking like the most run-down, depressed, world-is-out-get-me-and-life-is-miserable emo blond kid the world has ever seen. But by the end of this trip, you will be a perfect little ray of sunshine. And you will smile," he tapped the camera against my chest with each word, "In. Every. Picture."

"Riiight. Nice fantasy. Matt, unless you pump me up on something real strong, I'm not going to smile in a single picture you take of me."

"Oh really? A little contest then? I bet I can make you smile without getting you drunk or high."

I grinned. "Good luck." And before I could wipe that expression off my face, he'd snapped another picture.

We rented a motel room that night, and when we opened the door I instantly noticed, even in the dim light, that something was wrong.

"There's one bed," I said. Matt flicked on the light switch, nodding.

"Yep. Congratulations Mello, you can count."

I glared at him. "We need another room."

"Go ahead and buy yourself one."

Well I certainly would have done that….if I'd had the money. But I was completely out of cash, and Matt had the credit card. I glared at him. "What're you trying to do?"

"I'm not trying to _do _anything," he smirked at me. "You're just way too suspicious. Chill, man. Take the floor and wake up with a sore neck if you want to."

Of course I couldn't simply go along with that suggestion. We went ahead and shared the bed, after I threatened to give him a broken nose if he so much as nudged me through the night. Never mind that _I _was the restless sleeper and ended up sprawled over the bed with one foot on the pillow and the other on his chest. He told me the next morning that I mumbled in my sleep and "Sheesh, Mel, you could have given me a little breathing room". Damn him, taunting me like that. There wasn't really any retort I could give, so I just kept my mouth shut as I felt my face reddening and let him laugh at me. Again. Apparently I was a pretty funny guy.

…

For those of you who have lived under a rock in Antarctica your whole lives, the desert isn't a good place to wear tight leather, or any other clothing that doesn't let your skin get a little air. I'd gotten a really good idea of that fact by the end of day one, at which point we had almost reached the Arizona border. Neither of us had any spare clothes with us, so day two found us in Wal-Mart. I'll make this short and blunt: I hate their clothes. Matt didn't care.

He insisted that since he had the credit card and was "in charge" of this trip, he should be the one to buy our things. I wasn't really left with much choice other than to follow him around the clothes racks insulting everything he picked up. I told him he'd be dead if he bought the Spider-Man shirt he held up to me, and when we checked out it was one of the first things to be bagged.

So it was really a matter of pride that I went on sweating in my leather for the rest of the day, while he changed into a baggy t-shirt and shorts reaching just to his knees. I told him I'd rather go naked than wear what he'd bought, so when I woke up the next morning and my clothes from the previous day had conveniently disappeared, I stayed true to what I'd said. I walked out to the Camaro in nothing but briefs, while Matt lingered behind to pay the receptionist for the room and laugh at me as I went.

I finally gave in and dressed around noon, glowering in a ridiculous Spider-Man t-shirt and shorts too small for my liking. But they made the heat more bearable, and Matt was perfectly sweet about it that night, and actually thanked me for wearing the things. It would have been easier on me if he had been a jerk, because then I would have had a good excuse to lay him out. But no. All he could do was smile and thank me, and I was left me feeling like an ungrateful bastard.

We stocked up the trunk of the car with chocolate bars and Monster drinks, and that was what we lived off of when we couldn't get to a restaurant. We went ahead and rented motel rooms, never more than one and rarely with two beds, just because Matt liked to annoy me and watch me huff and complain about sharing my sleeping space. I suppose I didn't really care about that anymore though.

The truth was, I began to…enjoy myself…a bit. Once I stopped obsessing over the whole trip being useless and wanting something _I _suggested to be taken into consideration for once, I realized it wasn't all so important as I thought. Matt even managed to get another picture of me smiling.

So here we were, five days later, somewhere in Arizona – maybe bordering on New Mexico – sleeping in the car for the night. I said I wanted the back seat, but Matt insisted _he _was getting the seat, and I was going on the floor. As soon as we'd both lay down, with no small amount of grumbling on my part, his hand flopped over the seat and tangled in my hair, alternating between careful tugging and gently rubbing my head. I was thankful he couldn't see my face from up there, since that rubbing was putting me right to sleep.

Just before my eyes closed fully, I wondered if I could spend the rest of my life this way. At the moment, that wasn't looking like a bad plan.

…

Several dozen miles back down the road sat an abandoned gas station, old and dark, its walls worn from the scourge of wind-blown sand. The price sign still read 1.02, the windows were cracked and the place had long since been gutted of everything within it. Yet there in the parking lot, beneath a single street lamp that hadn't been turned on in years, sat a gray BMW without license plates, parked just beside a low wall of crumbling brick.

Upon this wall sat three young men, looking as out of place beside the old building as their car. They sat very straight, dressed in immaculate suits and ties, as if on their way to a business meeting. It could be said they were handsome, though it was in the way a porcelain doll could be called such. They were neat and clean, too much so in fact, and their faces had such calm expressions one would think they were incapable of moving their lips into a smile or their foreheads into a frown.

"Matthew," the middle one spoke, carefully preening his slicked-back brown hair. "Have you found them?"

"Almost," said the man to his left, his eyes fixed upon the laptop set on the wall beside him. He carefully pushed his rimless glasses farther up his nose. "Reception is certainly not the best out here."

"Hmph. What a bother." The third gave a small roll of his eyes as he spoke, sounding bored. "I could have taken care of them _weeks _ago, Arik. Yet you've dragged us out here, to the oh-so-beautiful desert." He held a bag of M&Ms in his hand, and as he spoke he sifted through them with his fingers, picking out and eating only the yellow ones. "It seems wasteful of our time."

"Hardly so, Airetsyh," said the middle one, Arik. "We are doing our duties as Our Lord's heirs. We are to act with mercy and compassion for these terrible sinners. They must be given a chance to repent. Think of how long a chance Our Lord gave L to repent. Must we not follow his example?"

"But these ones caused Our Lord's death. Do they deserve such mercy?"

"All sinners deserve mercy."

"Got it," said Matthew, smiling very slightly. "They're not too far from here. We'll easily be within a good distance of them by morning."

"Excellent," Arik dropped down lightly from the wall, Matthew following behind him. "Let us take our leave then. Airetsyh, are you coming?"

"Yes of course, brother," Airetsyh lowered himself from the wall, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked ahead on the highway. "Where are you hiding?" he whispered. He tipped his bag of M&Ms, letting them pour out onto the sand. "I have to wonder, Mr. Keehl, why haven't you come out to play?"

…

Day six gave us a red sunrise and a breakfast of caffeine-rush and sugar-high. The highway was empty as far as we could see, as usual, and Matt reached over a hundred MPH when we came to a hilly part of the road. The pavement went up and down so quickly even I started to feel a little sick. There was hardly any radio reception out here, except for a few country stations, so we went ahead and listened to a Velvet Revolver CD we'd already heard straight through plenty of times in the past few days.

Matt eventually got bored with that, switching it to the radio where he went ahead and tried to sing along with some country love song. The fake Texas twang he tried to pull off sounded even stranger when paired with his British accent, and I swear the kid couldn't hit a right note to save his life.

"Damn, Matt, deafen me why don't you?" I said, covering my ears as he screeched into a high note. He laughed, as usual. I didn't get how he could be having so much fun out here.

"Come on, Mel," he said. "You sing too." I shook my head adamantly, and he began flipping through radio stations, determined that he would find something I'd sing along to. I told him the whole while I wouldn't, no, nope, not doing it, never doing it, ever, not even if it was me alone in the shower. I couldn't sing, and I knew well that I couldn't. If my voice bordered anywhere near a tune, it would sound like a combination of bad car brakes, a hurt dog, and nails on a chalkboard.

Matt paused on some Bryan Adams song, glancing over at me questionably. I shook my head, but I went ahead and listened to the lyrics anyway.

_I can't be beat and that's a fact _

_  
It's OK - I'll find a way _

_  
You ain't gonna take me down no way_

A slow smirk spread across Matt's face. "Come on Mel, you want to."

"Nope."

_  
Don't judge a thing until you know what's inside it_

_  
Don't push me - I'll fight it_

Matt started singing, swerving the car back and forth across the road as he did. The windows were rolled down, whipping his hair around his head, making him look as crazy as he sounded, shouting the lyrics "You can't take me!" at the top of his voice. But I was beginning to smile a bit, something in me going off like adrenaline, some kind of rush. So what the heck, why not? Next time the chorus came around I sang it with him.

_You can't take me – I'm free_

"Yeah!" Matt reached over to push my shoulder lightly. "I knew you could, Mel." His grin turned to a more sincere smile. "You're no worse than I am."

"Yeah right," I gave him a little shove back. "I'm better than you any day; you sound like a yowling cat." I felt a bit like a buzz-kill after that, but he kept his smile despite it and still had it when we pulled into a McDonald's parking lot in the next town we came to a few miles up the road.

"See, this is good for you," he said, walking backwards in front of me up toward the door. "I told you I'd get you to smile." He reached out to nudge my face a little with his knuckle. "You got dimples, kid."

"I don't," I said, brushing his hand away, then watching as he tried to pull open the door when the sign on it clearly said "push". Here was the reason he had been only third at Wammy's: he rarely paid attention. I went ahead and pushed it open for him. "Rocket science, Matt. Look at that, I'm the next Einstein."

He shook his head. "I'd starve without you Mello."

…

The BMW pulled off the road into the parking lot, Arik sitting calmly in the driver's seat as Matthew kneaded a plastic bag filled with red liquid in his hands. There was a soft sound from the backseat, like a cry of frustration, and Arik said, "Let's remain calm, shall we Airetsyh? We don't want a repeat of what occurred at the White Tiger. That was rather rash of you."

"Yes. Yes, of course," Airetsyh voice sounded strained as he spoke, sitting very straight and tense in his seat, glaring toward the large windows on the sides on the restaurant. "I can't see them…"

"You don't need to," said Matthew, holding up the bag. "We can't get rid of them yet anyway. _Mercy_, brother. We must give them their warning"


	2. Chapter 2

_I am happy to report I have finished the remainder of Games, and am now just going back through for some final changes and spelling/grammar checks. I'll have the remaining chapters put up as I finish proof-reading them. For now, here is Chapter 2 :) _

_If you haven't already read the first part of this story, titled AU: Face, I recommend you do so, otherwise you may get a bit confused with this one._

_Mello, Matt, L, Near, Kira/Light and the idea of Death Note belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata._

_Arik, Matthew, and Airetsyh (I pronounce it air-et-sigh) were created by me._

* * *

"I swear they put something in these fries," said Matt, examining his fries as we made our way back outside. By his expression one would think they were evidence from a crime scene. "You know, they used to put cocaine in Coca Cola, that's why it's called Coke."

"You're just desperate for another fix since you quit smoking," I said, opening the door myself since his hands were full with leftover food.

"Look, it isn't my fault one of the bullets took out a lung - Whoa…"

"Whoa" was right. We both stopped completely still, staring across the parking lot at the Camaro. Someone had scrawled across the back of it in bright red letters, and people were beginning to pause as they passed to read it. What the heck was going on?

I ran over, shoving people out of the way and telling them to move along. I read the words, my breath quickening.

"Wow," said Matt, his words muffled by French fries. "Someone knows us a little too well."

They did indeed. The words read:

_Killing is a sin, rebels._

_I do not kill, I execute the unworthy._

_Repent, and your death shall be quick._

_Against me, you have no choice but to fall._

I said a few choice words, my heart pounding, as I snatched the Coke out of Matt's hands and poured it over the back windshield where the writing was. I grabbed napkins out of the glove box in the front seat, scrubbing off the words as quickly as I could, the sticky soda not making the job any easier. How could this be possible?

"Hey Mel…don't panic or anything," said Matt. "Look, it was probably just a prank. Maybe someone recognized you from TV and wanted to scare you a little."

"Matt," my voice was hushed as I hissed at him. "This isn't a prank! This is blood! Animal or human, I can't tell, but it is. It comes off far too easy to be paint. Can't you smell it?"

"Hey, don't you think…" he began, as I finished wiping away the last of it and dumped the napkins in the front seat with the vague idea that I'd have to get them DNA tested. "This message, it's kinda like…"

"Kira. I know. Just think of the first letter of each sentence, idiot, it's clear enough." I sat down in the passenger seat, thinking hard as Matt started the car. "It's the killer from LA. It has to be."

"He couldn't possibly have just followed us out here," said Matt, pulling out of the parking lot. There was finally a note of seriousness in his voice, and if I had perhaps been calmer at the time I would have understood his skepticism a bit better. "What, do you think he's tracking us?"

"That night…at Jeremiah's. He must have planted something on the car! A tracking device of some kind, there's no other way he could have followed us this far without us noticing. We've been alone on highways for dozens of miles at a time, it's the only way. Damn it!"

I kept a careful watch behind the car for the rest of the day. We stopped early at a hotel, just before dusk, and I searched the car from trunk to hood, but found nothing. I was shaken, frustrated beyond all thought.

"I knew I shouldn't have left!" I said once I was back in our room that night. I was sitting close beside the window, staring out at the car as it sat in the light of a streetlamp. "I should never have left LA. The case wasn't over; I shouldn't have just left it! Now we've got some Kira freak after us. I don't get it, there must have been something…he left messages before, what is he _doing_?"

"Mello, we can't do anything tonight," said Matt, climbing into bed. "Look, if it'll make you feel better, _I'll _search the car tomorrow, but I'm tired now. If there really is someone after us, if that psycho really did follow us out here, we're safe for now, okay? Third floor hotel, locked door. No one is getting in here." He reached under his pillow, pulling out his automatic. "And look, we've got firepower. We're safe. Let's handle this in the morning, when we're a bit more clear-headed."

"I'm not going to sleep," I said, curling up on the window seat, the window's glass panes cold against my face. "I'm staying up. I'm going to catch that bastard if he comes anywhere near this place." I heard Matt sigh heavily, but he turned off the light, and I focused on keeping my eyes open.

…

It was the sun's rays hitting my closed eyes that woke me. One side of my face felt damp and cold, the consequences of sleeping with one's head against a window. I was still feeling drowsy as I looked out at the car and saw…..that it was exactly as we'd left it the previous night. There were no new vehicles in the parking lot, or even along the street, as far as I could see.

Matt was already up and I could hear the shower running, so that gave me a bit of time to myself to think things over. Could it have really been a prank? It didn't seem like this could be mere coincidence, considering how greatly the message resembled those found in Jeremiah's house. But there had to have been some clue that I'd missed, something I wasn't seeing. Considering the way he'd hid the name "KIRA" in his warning on the Camaro, and his cryptic usage of chocolate on the mouths of his LA victims, I could assume this was probably some kind of game he was playing. He was taunting me, trying to get me to dance to his little tune.

Yet there was always the possibility that I was wrong. The scene of Jeremiah's murder could have been broadcast on TV, and, like Matt had said, someone might have recognized me and decided to try to scare me. So they'd mimicked the message style they'd seen on TV, thrown in Kira's name for good measure, and ran.

Yeah. Right. Like I could believe _that _for a second.

Matt, as he promised, checked the car before we left for the day. I sat on the curb, nervously nibbling at a chocolate bar as he searched. I couldn't keep from continually glancing at the street, but I swear, no one ever went through these towns. It was amazing they stayed in business.

"Got it," Matt emerged from under the car, some new grease stains on his shirt and a little, black, oil-covered device between his fingers. "Look at that. High-tech, expensive, and whoever put this on here hid it well. I can hardly believe it." He glared at the little thing before dropping it to the ground and crushing under the heel of his boot. "But, that problem is now solved. They can't track us anymore."

I stared at the shattered remains of the tracking device, feeling almost sick with rage. The bastard. No one could do this to me and get away with it. "What if there's another one?"

Matt sighed heavily. "I doubt it, but if it'll make you feel better, I'll check the rest of the car too." He went around to the trunk, opened it up, and as soon as he did I knew something was wrong. It wasn't only the shocked expression on his face that gave it away.

It was the smell. Decay, rotting flesh. Death.

I was up from the curb in an instant, Matt saying quickly, "No, no, Mel, come on…"

There was no way he was stopping me. I went over to stand beside him, and there in the trunk lay three human hands, severed at the wrist. They were at least a few days into decaying, the skin sinking in around the bones and the smell near unbearable. Each of them were clutching something, one a chocolate bar, one a DS, and the third a Transformer. Then they knew about Near…

I slammed the trunk closed, snatched the keys from Matt's hand and went around to the driver's seat. "We should bury those," said Matt from behind me. "We're not going to just…we're not…Mello…" He grabbed my arm before I could get in the car. "What are you doing?"

"What do you think?" I snapped. "We're going back to LA."

"No. No, no, no. We're not." I tried to pull away from him, but his grip was unnecessarily tight. "I'm not letting you go back. We can handle this ourselves can't we? You don't need to go running back to L."

"I'm not running back to anyone! They may have information I don't, I'll need their help. There's no way this guy is getting away with doing this! I don't like being someone's plaything!"

"You're not going back," Matt's voice turned deathly serious. "If you go back, you'll never leave. I know you won't. You'll be stuck there for the rest of your life Mello."

"I am _never_ going to get stuck anywhere," I said. "Let go of me."

"You're not going back. Look, we can figure this out on our own; we've done just fine before."

"Matt," my whole body tensed up, everything in me resisting being held there. "Don't mess with me. I mean it."

"It's _my _car," he said, smirking as he plucked the keys out of my hand. "And you can't borrow it."

He still hadn't let go of my arm, and with my frustration growing, anger taking over my every thought, I punched him full in the face. Stupid of me. I should have known he'd fight back. He didn't even lose his footing, hardly stumbling before he lunged at me to throw me down on the ground. We went at each other like we meant it, as if given the chance we really would have killed each other. He got me good in the face and once in the stomach, while I turned it into a grappling match trying to get a chokehold on his throat. There was yelling around us, and I suddenly felt someone grab me and jerk me up to my feet, tearing Matt and I apart.

"You two better clear out, or I'll call the cops!" said the woman from the front desk, keeping herself a safe distance away from us on the hotel's front steps. It was some big older guy that was holding me captive, trying to calm me down as Matt got to his feet, wiping blood off his lip and glaring at me. I twisted in the man's grip, ignoring the way my body was already aching, wanting to get at him again. He'd gotten the keys to the Camaro, damn it.

"Bastard!" I yelled at him furiously, while he said nothing back. He just turned his back to me and walked away, which was far more infuriating than anything he could have said in return. The man holding me cautiously let go, and I swiftly turned myself in the opposite direction, heading out of the lot and down along the highway.

…

Half an hour later found me sitting in some old tavern, hunched over in a chair at the bar, still seeing red and wishing I could have pounded Matt's head into the concrete. Idiot. Trying to keep me in this town. I'd find a way back to LA, and I'd go without him. He could rot in the desert for all I cared.

"Anything I can get you?" said the man behind the bar, looking me over skeptically. Stupid Matt, thinking he could control me. _No one _was going to control me.

"Whatever," I said. "Something strong."

The man leaned against the counter opposite me. "ID, please?"

I came close to punching him out. I already knew I didn't have my wallet with me, and therefore had no ID. "Look old man, just give me the drink."

He shook his head, tapping his finger upon the sign on the wall behind him, which read "We reserve the right to card all customers."

"You should take a seat at one of the booths," he said. "But if you're looking for trouble, you'd better get the hell out."

I sat down at a table, feeling so frustrated I would have broken it in two if I'd had the strength. Damn Matt. Damn barkeep. I was twenty-freaking-three years old, and I still couldn't get a drink when I wanted. At least I had chocolate with me, but only because I'd stuffed my last bar in my pocket before inspecting the trunk of the Camaro, so it wouldn't last me long, being already more than half-eaten.

In truth, I didn't like alcohol. I'd seen its effects enough to know that the drunken mindlessness it could cause wasn't for me. I preferred to be in control of my own body, thank you very much. When I'd asked for something strong it wasn't because I'd actually intended on drinking all of it, I just wanted a distraction from my anger. But now that a drink had been _refused _to me, I wanted to get drunk just to defy the bastard who'd dared tell me no. _All _of them. I was sick of being told what to do. I didn't want to hear it from L, Near, or Matt, and certainly not from some idiot barkeep.

I must have been sitting there for nearly ten minutes, trying to get myself past all my anger so I could make sense of what had happened, when a young man came in the front door and took a seat at the bar, flashing his ID as he ordered a drink. The fact that he received that drink in record time was a good enough reason for me to hate him too. But I was getting off the subject….now, the hands….and the messages the killer had left so far. There had to be a clue there somewhere. So far it seemed quite probable that whoever it was worshipped Kira, and while it made sense for him to know of my history with the Kira case, how could he know about Near and Matt? And he certainly did know about them, _too _much about them, considering the Transformer and DS he'd left in the Camaro's trunk-

A drink slid across the table toward me, snapping me out of my thoughts, and the young man from the bar took a seat on the opposite side of the table, leaning back in his chair as he gave me a small smile. I frowned. "What do you want?"

"Nothing at all," he said. "You looked like you could use a drink." He motioned toward the glass. "Vodka. Not the best, but…" He shrugged, taking a bag of M&Ms out of his jacket. What on earth was he thinking, wearing a freaking business suit? He even had a tie, and he looked so clean it disgusted me. He reminded me of someone who liked to look down on others, and the way he kept smiling at me wasn't helping. I knew I probably looked pretty junky, dressed in knee-length shorts with ragged cuffs and a black tank-top, but that was no excuse to smirk at me. And what was the deal with offering me a drink? Did he want me to invest in something, or was he a salesman? It had to be a bribe of some kind….but I drew the glass toward me and took a sip anyway. He laid out a handful of M&Ms on the table, picking out the three yellow ones and dropping them in his drink. That sounded good…vodka and chocolate. I broke off a bit of the bar I had and dropped it in the glass, waiting for it to dissolve a bit before I took another drink. Bittersweet cocoa and the fire of vodka. Now there was a rush.

"I suppose you aren't from around here," said the young man casually, carefully smoothing his slicked blond hair. Already neat and tidy, yet he was _still _preening. It made me feel like throwing mud on him or something.

"That's not really any of your business," I said, taking a bigger gulp from the glass. It was refreshing to drink something so cold, and it was helping to take the edge off my anger. Maybe I could forgive Matt for being a complete prick to me…eventually.

"Oh, pardon me. I suppose it was rather rude to ask."

"Maybe you should introduce yourself, Mr. Clueless. It's customary courtesy in this country."

His eyes seemed to open a bit wider for a second, but then they were back to normal and I couldn't even be sure if I'd seen a change in them at all. "Of course. Call me…Hisuteri."

I glared at him skeptically. He certainly wasn't Japanese, and who on earth gave their poor kid a name that meant "hysteria"? "What about you?" he said. "Have you a name?"

"Mello," I said, letting the tone of sarcasm creep into voice at the irony of the situation. Hysteria and Mello. Ha, didn't we make a fine pair?

Minutes dragged by, and I went on thinking I wasn't really drinking much, until I had to tip my glass so far back to get the tiniest drop out of it that the ice spilled out all over my face. Damn, that stuff was good. I forgave Matt. Hell, I forgave the barkeep for being a jerk and this stupid fop for smirking at me. I wanted another glass, and Hisuteri was quick to order me one when I asked. The barkeep didn't bother to protest that I was drinking. I swear, the man just hated me and he knew perfectly well I was of age to drink. Neither of us spoke much; any conversation consisted of Hisuteri asking the occasional question or making some small-talk comment and my sarcastic answer. Maybe being drunk wasn't so bad. I was in perfect control of myself, I just felt so good I could have been back on an overdose of anti-depressants again. I remember for a while, when in prison, I'd told enough lies to the right people so that I was getting three shots of lorazepam a day. Much more than I was supposed to have, but man that stuff was nice. Like vodka on steroids.

"Maybe you could use some fresh air," said Hisuteri, getting up from his seat. That sounded like a good enough idea to me. I felt a little dizzy. But going back out into the sunlight after being in the dim tavern for so long wasn't good for my eyes, and standing up wasn't doing any good for my head either, or my stomach.

"Keep your feet Mello," said Hisuteri, smirking at me again. "You're looking rather drunk."

"Not drunk," I mumbled, flopping down to sit on the ground. I heard Hisuteri chuckle, and I began to hate him again. I had the thought that I should call Matt to come pick me up…did I even have my cell on me? I couldn't afford to get a DUI….oh, wait….I didn't have a car to get a DUI _in_,did I?

"Well, Mr. Keehl, I should take my leave."

That jolted me, and my head snapped up to look at Hisuteri again as he stared down at me. Keehl? But I hadn't told him that name. He crouched down beside me, holding up a small paper bag he'd had stuffed in his pocket. "Here's a little parting gift for you." He stood straight again, beginning to walk away toward a motorcycle parked in the side of the tavern, the only other vehicle there besides the owner's run-down Ford. But he stopped suddenly, glancing back at me. "Oh, please don't be so boring from now on. When I heard of you, my first thought was that you were the perfect for rival for me. But so far you've acted much too rationally. This is the first time you've done something even vaguely amusing. Come on, Mihael. You can fight dirty can't you?"

I frowned in confusion, opening the bag just as he started the motorcycle and tore out onto the road. The bag was so light I didn't think there could possibly be anything in it, but as I reached inside my hand closed around something soft…..hair?

What I pulled out was a handful of red human hair. Flaming red, a color I'd only ever seen growing naturally on one person.

Matt.

* * *

"_Hisuteri" really means "hysteria" in Japanese, according to the Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary._

_On another little note, the reason Mello continually refers to the killer as a "he" is not because he already knows it is male, it's because it interrupts story flow to constantly write he/she, she/he, he or she, she or he. It gets tiring and repetitive, and makes it seem like reading some kind of legal document (at least in my mind). Therefore, I don't do it :)_


	3. Chapter 3

_At the risk of you developing hypertension by a longer wait, here is Chapter 3. I do enjoy cliffhangers greatly, by the way :) They make me happy, muhahahaha!_

_I suppose I should warn you about a little something. I really, really don't want to disappoint my readers, but if you're reading this story only because you're waiting for smut, I suppose I should tell you now you won't get it. I apologize, but I just don't feel comfortable writing it. You can anticipate growth in Matt and Mello's relationship, but don't plan on any WHOOnakedkinkysmexyyaoiYAY!. Yeeeah. I'm really sorry if I've let any of you down…_

_Mello, Matt, L, Near, Kira/Light and the idea of Death Note belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata__._

_Arik, Matthew, and Airetsyh were created by me._

* * *

It must have taken me over an hour to get back to the hotel, partially because I forgot where it was. Damn vodka, I'd never drink again. And Hisuteri…there was something I knew I'd figured out about him, but I couldn't remember. I knew I'd realized something when I saw Matt's hair clenched in my hand, something important….what had it been?

The five steps up to the hotel's front door – when I reached it at last – looked like an impossible challenge. I couldn't seem to move my feet more than an inch off the ground, and I didn't even think I was capable of taking another shuffling step forward. My body was aching all over with bruises, and I began to wonder if Matt was hurting too. I was really hoping I hadn't hurt him too bad…he _had _deserved to be hurt a little, though….trying to keep me here….where was "here" anyway? I never looked at the names of towns we stayed in or passed through. I guess I really hadn't been thinking much lately.

"Mello?"

I recognized the voice, so when someone's arms went around me to keep me from falling face first onto the steps, I didn't really care. I knew who it was. Geez, that kid. I could remember when he was…hell, I don't know, eight years old? Little nerd-boy with those goggles. He'd probably been born wearing those things. There was this weird feeling of relief in me for some reason, as if I'd expected him to not be there…

I suddenly realized I was lying on the concrete steps, staring up into a sky that was already growing dark. I'd been gone that long? The stars were even coming out already. My vision was really going crazy on me now; those little bright dots in the sky would sometimes appear so close it seemed that if I reached up my hand I could touch them, but then they'd sink back and seem farther away than ever. Matt kept trying to get me to stand up but I was comfortable enough where I was. I guess he got sick of coaxing me, because he just picked me up and carried me in. For some reason, when I pictured what this must have looked like to anyone who happened to see us pass, I couldn't help but laugh.

He managed to get me back in our room and lay me on the bed, where I almost immediately rolled over onto my stomach and vomited onto the floor. Ugh, that was gross…when had I eaten so much? Matt was talking to me, and I felt him begin to rub my back, saying softly, "Dang Mel, you've really done it this time. You're a mess. Maybe you should have some water or something…" I gagged again, groaning over the throbbing in my head. There had been something I wanted to check…what was it? Matt was still here, that was good…but there was something…Something to do with the hands in the trunk…no…no, something else…I _knew _something, what was it?

I turned over onto my back, even though that really made my stomach feel nasty. One of my hands was still clenched tight, and I uncurled my fingers as I reached up to tangle them in Matt's hair, not even noticing that there had already been plenty of it in my hand. _He _noticed though, and I saw him frown in confusion, beginning to question me.

"You have nice hair, Matty," I said softly, feeling as if I could drop off to sleep. He was looking at me as if I was crazy, but I didn't blame him. I'd never been drunk around him before. "Like fire or something…like a crayon…a melted one…you know?"

"Sure Mel. Right. I guess I'll take it as a compliment." He carefully untangled my hand from his hair, holding it tight. "Look, I'm sorry about earlier. I just want you to understand, okay? Maybe I'm being selfish, but I knew that if you went back to LA I might not see you again and…well, we've done fine by ourselves before…why not now? We never needed anyone else during the Kira case. I buried the…the hands…and tomorrow we'll just leave town. With the tracker gone we can't be followed anymore."

Tracker? Oh yeah. The hands, the murderer from LA. The messages…I'd missed something…right? There was a little cut on Matt's lip, and I began to grow distracted with it. Had I done that to him?

"It really is nice though," I went on, paying no attention to what he'd said, my mind slipping from one thought to another. "It's like something someone would paint. Like…" I spread my arms out to the sides. "…like…bang! Or something like that. You know? You get it, right?"

"Yeah," he nodded quickly. "Of course. Makes sense."

Damn right it made sense. There was something else I wanted to say, but I was so tired. My eyes were closing, and I started remembering this lollipop L had once. It had been real big and all pastel colored. That got me thinking about how L was supposed to dead, and Matt had been almost dead, and that it was my fault he couldn't smoke anymore. I was really feeling bad about that.

"Whoa…hey, come on Mel. What're you crying for? Don't get teary on me. Look, if you want to go back LA, I guess…I guess we'll go. We will, I swear. Just don't…"

"I'm not crying, idiot," I mumbled, though for all I knew I could have been doing just that. I couldn't figure out _what_ I was doing. Nothing was really making much sense at the moment, except that Matt's hair looked awful bright. _That _made perfect sense. Somehow. My vision kept magnifying things, making them look really close and then far away again. I was simply too tired to stand it anymore. Everything in reality left, and then it was just me and wonderful, quiet sleep.

…

I woke in the morning with a throbbing headache, swearing to myself once more that I'd never touch alcohol again in my life. I couldn't fully remember everything that had gone on the previous day, but I knew I must have made a complete fool of myself.

"You awake?" said Matt, peering out of the bathroom with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and shaving cream across his face. "Oh…wow. Brush your hair or something man, you look like you just crawled out of a trash heap."

"Shut up," I said, burying myself under the blankets and beginning to pull off my filthy clothes from the previous day, tossing them out from under the covers. It took me a bit of time to remember how to work the zipper on my shorts, and my fingers seemed so utterly useless to me they might as well have been numb. My body just wasn't working right. Wretched vodka…why wasn't the stuff illegal yet?

"Hey," Matt called to me over the sound of the sink running. "What was up with you carrying around a fistful of my hair yesterday? Usually I'd say that's creepy, but considering the way you are-"

"It was him!" I tossed off the covers and was on my feet so fast I had to catch my balance against the wall, not at all helped by the fact that I still had my shorts hooked around one ankle and had stupidly tried to keep pulling them off as I'd leapt up. Lesson learned. No quick movements with a hangover. Matt was staring at me with an alarmed expression, slowly sliding a shaving razor down one side of his face and looking as if he was ready to call a doctor on me. Or an insane asylum. I nearly laughed. Yes! I knew it! I knew I'd figured out something!

"I know who the murderer is," I said. "And he…" I paused, full realization finally hitting me. "We can't stay here. Get dressed, we need to leave."

I guess Matt got that I wasn't joking. Hardly five minutes later we were out the door and back on the road. As I kept a lookout behind the car I explained what had happened at the tavern. The single gun sitting on the floor at my feet suddenly didn't seem like nearly enough.

"He was close enough to kill me," said Matt, looking slightly dazed. "He got _in our room_. How is it possible?" He kept clutching at his hair, trying to find where it had been cut I suppose.

"It's a game to him Matt," I said grimly. "Getting in our room was, let's say, a bonus mission. Extra points."

"I suppose you have a plan of some kind?"

I didn't want to tell him I didn't, so I just kept my mouth shut. What kind of plan could I possibly think up? I knew the guy wanted us dead, and Near as well, but as for what he'd do next I honestly couldn't say. He was unpredictable, so I suppose his name fit him just fine. He was probably aware that we'd removed the tracker, and I certainly wasn't going to assume we were suddenly safe from being followed by him. No, he was going to keep up with us, one way or another. I saw several motorcycles as we drove, but none of them were his. Somehow that only made me surer that he wasn't far behind.

He'd asked if I could play dirty, a blatant enough challenge. A rival for him indeed. I'd prove I was far more than he could handle, but a single gun wasn't enough for that. Yet, where could we possibly get weapons? I wasn't sure about the laws for purchasing guns in New Mexico, or wherever it was we were, but I didn't even have a license to carry a firearm in California. Showing my ID could be dangerous, considering my history. I knew Matt had a false name on his credit card, and on the driver's license he was carrying, but I didn't have the luxury of an alias anymore. I suppose we might have been able to find an old gun in a pawn shop, but we didn't have time to drive for miles and miles until we found one that not only carried a gun but would sell it to couple of thugs like us when we didn't even have cash.

I smirked. If Hisuteri wanted me to play dirty, I'd just have to improvise.

…

We drove until dusk, putting ourselves once more in the middle of nowhere. However, there was a lone gas station we came upon, and it was there that we stopped to get our supplies. I swear the guy there working the night shift looked ready to call the cops just at the sight of us. Of course the place didn't carry guns, but we were able to get lighter fluid, matches, rope, and a few hunting knives they carried. We also took the wooden palettes piled in back of the place, not really caring if they were missed or not.

About an hour later we turned off the road, driving through the sand back to the hulking buttes about two miles in the distance. We found a way through them, driving back until we came to a place that was closed in all sides except for the narrow passage through which we'd entered. Matt turned the Camaro around to face this exit, and though he turned off the engine he left the keys in the ignition and both doors open. We stacked up the palettes, thoroughly doused them with lighter fluid and lit them up, creating a bonfire that sent up sparks over twenty feet, and smoke that went even higher. Impressive, but it wasn't just for looks. All that was left to us now was to wait for our stalker to show up. He couldn't pass up an open invitation like this. It had "face-off" written all over it, and I knew he wouldn't be able to resist.

"And you're so sure…why?" said Matt, when I confidently told him this.

"It's his personality," I said. "I can just tell. He's too bold, too prideful. He can't pass this up. I'm forcing the boss battle Matt. You get it?"

He rolled his eyes. "Maybe I'd feel a bit better if you weren't looking so crazy right now. Just remember, you're doing exactly what he wants."

I fingered the gun in my hands, ignoring him. So what if I was playing Hisuteri's game? That didn't mean I wasn't going to win.

…

We waited.

Hours passed, and it was nearing midnight when we finally saw headlights approaching. It wasn't a motorcycle however, and panic momentarily shot through me as I realized it might be cops.

But no. It was just two guys in a BMW, and something about them was eerily familiar. Maybe it was the business suits? The slicked hair? Maybe it was the freaking stuck-up smirks they wore?

They stopped the car about fifty yards away, getting out and standing by their open doors as if waiting for an invite to join us. They had no weapons that I could see, and no one else was in the car. So Hisuteri wasn't with them…

"Hey!" I yelled, stepping forward with my finger already on the gun's trigger. I knew Matt was close behind me, well-armed with plenty of blades, as well as a few of his own little specialties: three plastic water bottles emptied of their original liquid, then filled with gasoline and three bullets each. He'd bought some needles at the gas station, threaded them, and used them to pierce the bottles near their tops, leaving just a bit of string to hang out. It was a crude, but effective, bomb. Light up the string and run for cover, basically.

"Who are you?" I called to them, prepared to shoot at the slightest provocation. "Where's Hisuteri?" There was certainly no denying they had to know the guy. They were his freaking little clones.

I saw them glance at each other, and then the taller one, the brunette, spoke. "You must be referring to our brother Airetsyh. We'd certainly like to know where he is as well, Mr. Keehl. Unfortunately he can be a bit rash, and tends to act without thinking. We hope he has not caused you or Mr. Jeevas any inconvenience."

I heard Matt curse behind me, the use of his real name catching him off guard. How the heck could they know that? "Get away from the car!" I said, bringing up the gun to aim. "Now!"

Surprisingly, they did as I said, walking forward with their hands behind their backs. "I want your hands up," I said, my finger tightening slightly on the trigger.

The second of them, black haired and bespectacled, chuckled. "Please, Mr. Keehl, don't assume you are in control of the situation." Uncertainty flashed through me, and in that instant they both whipped up their arms, now holding what looked like automatics. "There now. This is a much healthier set up, don't you agree? If you shoot one of us, we shall be forced to shoot you in return."

I didn't relax, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Matt come up to stand by my side. The taller of them went back to speaking. "Now then, let us introduce ourselves. I am Arik, and this is Matthew. I assume you've already met Airetsyh. We are Our Lord's Heirs. Pleased to make your acquaintance at last."

I was baffled. What were they doing? Surely there was some hidden scheme here, but _this _was their cover? Pleasant introductions as if this were some sort of tea party? In a way it was like Hisuteri, or Airetsyh, considering the way he'd introduced himself to me. But these two lacked his daring edge. Matthew and Arik…

I smirked. "Well, pleasant as this all is, we're sick of being chased around by creepy Kira followers. If you care so much about nice introductions and manners, I'll have you now that you've both already been rude by ruining our road trip."

"Our apologies," Arik bowed his head slightly. "We wished only to warn you properly before we were forced to execute you, but you have both been terribly stubborn. We are growing tired of following you about."

"Let me guess," said Matt. "You came here to end it?"

Arik smiled slightly. "Unfortunately so."

"You think we'll just roll over and play dead for you?" I said, beginning to pace restlessly. I hated stand-offs, waiting and waiting for the perfect moment to make a move.

"Of course not, Mihael. We have not underestimated you."

I felt Matt's fingers tap my hand lightly, and I gave him a slight nod. "So you claim you're Kira's heirs?" I said, taunting them. "You like worshipping a murderer?"

"Not a murderer," said Matthew. "A wise judge, and then an executioner."

I laughed. "Oh, that makes all the difference doesn't it? He was still a killer." I shrugged. "But it's your life. If you like worshipping killers…then worship this." I brought up the gun, firing without a moment's hesitation.

I heard Matthew fire nearly at the same moment I did, and dropped to the ground to avoid the bullet. Matt had already moved back behind the Camaro's open door, and I heard the sound of a match being lit as I scrambled back to join him, out of firing range for the moment.

"You hit him?" said Matt quickly, fumbling a bit as he lit the string on one of his "bombs".

I peered around the door warily. Matthew still had his gun ready, but he was somewhat distracted with Arik, who'd been hit in the neck. I winced slightly. That bullet was _supposed _to have gotten him in the head. I had a feeling they were wearing something nasty under those suits of theirs, like bullet-proof vests, so I'd really taken a risk in spending extra seconds to try to aim at his head. At least I hadn't missed altogether.

"I got him," I said. "But he isn't dead."

"Great, just great." Those strings Matt had put through the bottles of gasoline burned slow, so he had to sit there waiting for them to burn down before he could throw the thing. He waited until it was just a mere centimeter away from going up in flames before he leapt up, throwing it as hard as he could and ducking back down behind the door.

The sound was, at first, like the world's biggest match being lit. There was a great deal of yelling, and then the bullets went off, three little explosions to top it. I peered around the door again, and found that Matt had awfully good aim. He'd managed to hit Arik perfectly, and I think it was safe to say the guy was dead now. Matthew had thrown off his jacket, which had caught some of the flames which now covered his "brother's" body, and he'd managed to drop his gun in the process.

"Alright, don't move!" I said, coming back out into the open again. "Unless you want to end up like Kira Clone #1 you'd better do as I say!"

Matthew smiled slightly, shaking his head. He knew when he was beaten.


	4. Chapter 4

_I had to take a bit longer on this chapter, since things slow down a little and I therefore had to focus on individual personalities and character development much more. The thing is I basically already have in my head how I believe Mello and Matt would act during certain situations, such as fights, stand-offs, anything tense, etc. But when it comes to quieter, calmer situations I have a lot of different ways they could act floating around in my mind. So I have to take my time to make sure I'm getting it as right as I can (and this is all judging from what I can get out of their personalities in the manga……and maybe the occasional Ai Love Love doujinshi…). I have to admit Matt is easier for me. Mello likes to be difficult._

_So I hope this chapter pleases! Thanks so much for the reviews :)_

_Mello, Matt, L, Near, Kira/Light and the idea of Death Note belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata._

_Arik, Matthew, and Airetsyh were created by me._

* * *

We took several minutes to get Matthew properly secured, and after that our first priority was to do something about what remained of Arik. Even if he was mostly ashes by that time, it wasn't smart to just leave him lying about. And of course, given the situation, we couldn't possibly simply take him down to the nearest police station and say "we did this in self-defense".

We got him buried, and didn't bother with what remained of the palettes we'd burned. If anyone found them, they'd most likely assume it was just from some teenagers having a party. We were back on the road just before dawn.

We thought it best to put as much possible distance between ourselves and what we'd left behind, but we were still careful to keep to the speed limit….most of the time. We couldn't afford to have a cop pull us over now, not with a guy tied up in our trunk. I still wasn't sure exactly what I planned on doing with Matthew, but I thought it best that he remain under our control. Besides, he'd probably have some much needed answers for us. Really, all I was interested in was finding Airetsyh. As for what I'd do once I managed to get rid of the freak…well, I certainly didn't know.

By dusk, we somehow found ourselves at the Mexico border. Yes, "somehow". I've already told you we didn't pay attention to any signs we passed, didn't I? I was being honest, you know.

That was fortunate for us. We would no longer have to worry about the cops nearly as much, since we had no warrants in Mexico as far as I knew. After all, Matt had already served his time there a while ago, and that was only for drag racing. It wasn't like we needed passports to get over the border either. We did, however, have to take Matthew out of the trunk and untie him. We were sure to threaten him with certain death if he said a single unnecessary word to the border patrol, but he kept his mouth shut good. I guess he wasn't much of one to cause trouble, once removed from his little posse.

A good two miles over the border we got ourselves a hotel, probably the worst one we'd had thus far on the trip, but we endured it regardless. In my experience, the junkier the hotel the less likely people were to care about what went on there. Since I couldn't be sure if my and Matt's activity was going to stay legal, this was a good set-up for us.

"I suppose you're going to question me?" said Matthew, his voice coming to me from the other room. I'd left the bathroom door open as I showered, narrowly avoiding several cockroaches that skittered away from the water, having left Matt to guard the guy.

"Just shut your mouth," said Matt, sounding bored. "You're distracting me." I rolled my eyes, already imagining him sitting there playing his DS with his gun utterly abandoned.

I turned off the water, toweling off quickly as I stepped out of the shower. I'd done interrogations before, so I didn't think this would be a problem. In fact, it seemed Matthew was ready to completely cooperate.

"In all honesty, I'd rather not die," he said upon seeing me, the first flicker of real emotion going across his face. Was it fear, or was it embarrassment at admitting such a human want? I slung the towel across my shoulders, finding Matt exactly as I'd expected to, completely absorbed in his DS with the gun lying at his feet. I snatched it up, fondling it in my hands.

"Is that so?" I said, glancing over at Matthew casually. "So you'll talk?"

"What do you want to know?"

"You didn't answer my question. What I want to know is if you'll talk."

Matthew sighed heavily. "Unfortunately, it greatly depends upon what you ask."

I frowned. Any resistance would simply have to be dealt with if and when it came up. For now, hopefully, he would work with me. "Okay, first question: how did you and your 'brothers' find out so much about us?"

"We were all Our Lord's followers from the beginning," he said. "We were friends in high school and college. Arik ended up in prison after Our Lord was murdered, and there he met the noble Mikami Teru. Mikami told Arik about Nate River, and yourself, Mr. Keehl. He instructed Arik to insure L's heirs were all destroyed. When Arik was released, we banded together to fulfill Our Lord's wishes. It was my duty to study you and your fellows as closely as possible. Discovering information about Mail was difficult, I must admit. He's a tricky one to follow, and since almost all his birth records had been erased it took quite some time to discover his true identity."

"Hey, look," said Matt, still staring at the screen. "Don't call me 'Mail'. And not 'Mr. Jeevas' either, that'll make me feel old. It's just Matt, okay? Or, you know what? Don't refer to me at all. Just leave me out of it."

Matthew smirked. "Very well."

"So Arik met Mikami…" I said slowly. I'd heard of him, though only through news reports while my own trial was still in progress. "And just like that the three of you decided to become murderers to get a dead man's revenge?"

"Arik had already killed in Our Lord's name, but was never convicted for it. We were _chosen _Mihael, we were honored to serve."

I felt a little jolt in me, suddenly reminded of my childhood, my dreams of becoming L. The honor it would have been to take his place. I guess I could understand what Matthew was saying pretty well. I'd probably felt what they had.

"So the murders in LA…" I left the question unfinished, feeling a bit distracted.

"It was us," said Matthew. "Arik, to be more specific."

I frowned slightly, wondering… "And the White Tiger? Was that really Jeremiah, or…"

"That was Airetsyh. He acted without our consent. As I told you, he gets over-excited. He later told us that a man was already there who was supposed to kill you, but apparently he grew suspicious and left."

"So it seems to me Airetsyh has a different goal in mind than what you and Arik did. Do you know what he's hoping to get?"

Matthew hesitated a moment, then gave a small shrug. His voice suddenly had a new tone to it. He was picking his words carefully. "Airetsyh was the last to join us. He met us in the later years of college and was…unstable…even then. We knew he was a risk to deal with, but he had passion, and could get things done. After all, being emotionless isn't as great a thing as some would like to think."

I already knew that well enough. If it wasn't for emotions I wouldn't have gotten anywhere in my life. I wouldn't have acted when I needed to and helped bring down Kira. So Airetsyh was able to feel, something Arik and, to a lesser degree, Matthew, seemed to have tried to train themselves out of. Airetsyh would not go about things calmly and rationally. He would not pause to think. He would act, and when he did it would be sudden and violent.

"Arik and I hated you," Matthew went on. "You, Matt, Near, and L. Airetsyh didn't. In fact, I think he likes you. It's bordering a bit on being an _obsession_ with you, Mihael. I suppose it's made him happy to find someone with a personality resembling his own. He's always seeking competition, and you managed to challenge him just with your existence. Perhaps he views it as the ultimate victory: overcoming oneself."

"The messages left at the murder scenes?" I said. "What did those mean?"

"They were merely warnings. Arik insisted we leave them, as an act of mercy. There is no great clue in them."

I flopped down to sit on the bed, laying the gun beside me. Perhaps there was more I could have asked, but that seemed trivial now. Matthew had already told me what I needed to know. If he'd lied concerning Airetsyh having a different goal, then so be it. I sincerely doubted the man was capable of striving for a perfect utopia, as Kira had. All that mattered was that he meant me harm.

I'd already beaten Arik and Matthew. I'd overcome Kira once again, and it had been pathetically easy. They'd had no great intelligence, nor any passionate drive. They weren't like "Their Lord". Kira hadn't trained himself to have no emotion, as they had. He had _great _emotion, and that was probably the reason he'd gone undefeated for as long as he had. My opponent was Airetsyh, he was all that mattered. It had been a long time since I'd felt such a drive to win, and it was another one of those good rushes. Like caffeine, or adrenaline. It was so much excitement building up that my hands shook a bit.

I didn't get how people could live without being able to feel that. Whoever dared to think I was emotionless was out of their minds. I'd die without being able to feel. Feeling _was _life. Passion was survival. Kill or be killed.

I considered shooting Matthew, just ending it now that we had no further use for him. But I didn't choose that option. He could just stay tied up until we managed to get him to the courts, and they could handle him. He'd already lost, and to be frank I didn't _like _killing people. Besides if I did so, it would leave a mess to clean up. The body, the blood. It was one thing to kill someone, but quite another to keep from getting caught. The last thing I needed right now was distraction. As long as Matthew caused us no trouble, I saw no point in ending his life. We made sure he was securely immobile and shut him away in the bathroom, since Matt said it would creep him out to have the guy staring at us "all night".

We each were able to keep a gun close at hand that night, thanks to our captive's kind donation of his own firearm. I remained at the window a bit before going to bed, watching the street below, but Airetsyh didn't pass by us, at least not that way. I found myself not feeling tired in the least as I lay down in bed. I hadn't felt this good since…well, I suppose since the time Matt and I had worked together during the Kira case. I glanced over at him lying beside me, probably already half-asleep, and thought about the way I'd kissed him a week or so back, before Jeremiah had been killed. What had he said about it….oh yes, he'd called it "full of kink", which wasn't what I'd had in mind. I frowned thinking about it. I'd been tense, what did he expect? I didn't just go around handing out kisses either. I didn't really know _how _to be so gentle and soft. I didn't get how he could go from the sweet kid who sang along to Bryan Adams songs to a punk who could send a guy up in flames as easy as anything.

I was pretty sure I could see where Airetsyh had cut his hair. Matt didn't have any specific style, at least I didn't think he did, but I could see where the hair had been jaggedly cut, probably with dull scissors. I reached out to run my fingers over it lightly, finding it so much shorter there than over the rest of his head. Airetsyh, that bastard.

Experimenting a little, I tried to mimic the way Matt would sometimes tangle his fingers up in my hair, alternating between carefully tugging and then lightly massaging the side of my head. I could remember him doing that even when we were kids. If I was sitting in front of him on the floor while he was on the bed or couch, he'd just start playing with my hair. Maybe it had something to do with needing to keep his hands busy.

"Ow," he began to shift around, and I jerked my hand away. He rolled onto his back to look over at me, his eyes half-closed with sleepiness. "What're you doing?"

"Nothing."

"You were touching me," he mumbled, rubbing one hand over his face.

"No I wasn't."

"_Yes_, you were. You were pulling my hair."

I felt my face grow hot. I'd known that if I tried to be gentle I'd end up getting it wrong and looking stupid. It was just plain embarrassing. All this fondling, caressing, nonsense…ridiculous. A waste of time. I began to roll over to face away from him, but he stopped me before I could.

"Hey," He grabbed my wrist, then moved his hand so that it was holding the back of mine. "Relax. Like this, okay?" He moved my hand back so that my fingers ran through his hair to rest on the side of his head. "That's fine. If you're going to pull a little, just remember that you're not trying to rip it out."

My first reaction was to pull away, reject it, tell him to stop being stupid and go to sleep. But I hesitated. I let him guide my hand, feeling mortified, but allowing it regardless. "I can't go soft Matt," I said, wishing it wasn't so easy to get comfortable around him. He wasn't looking at me strangely, or even trying to keep eye contact. He actually seemed a little distracted, moving my hand through his hair. Perfectly relaxed, perfectly calm, while I lay there tense and embarrassed, clenching and unclenching my free hand, torn between pulling my other hand away or just letting it lie.

"Who said anything about going soft?" He released my hand, and I left it where it was as he reached over to stroke my hair. How did he manage to make his touch so casual, damn it? He grinned at me as he went on, "Affection can be strong. Whatever made you think it was weak?"

I couldn't quite answer that. I suppose I'd simply assumed it. Sometimes while in LA I remember seeing couples kissing, and being able to think only that in a few years, months, days, hours, those kisses could mean absolutely nothing. One could so very easily betray the other. I'd see friends smiling at each other and think how easily one of those smiles could be fake. Yet, out of those people, the one who would betray or the one who would fake a smile were the ones I found strong. _They _weren't left in tears when the relationships ended. The world simply wasn't trustworthy, especially not for me.

But…..what about the old couple who could still laugh together and hold hands as they walked down the street? What about the anniversary notices in the newspaper, celebrating fifty or more years together? I guess those things were easy to overlook when the world seemed obsessed with separation. Divorce, betrayal, murder. It was everywhere. It was used as freaking _entertainment_, while some things that should have been good were either made out to be freakish or twisted. Maybe that was why Matt was easy to be around. He was simple. Simple wants, simple feelings. I couldn't imagine him ever struggling with how he felt over something. If he liked you he'd say so, and if he didn't he'd say that too.

"Mello," Matt squirmed over a bit closer to me. "Don't start over-analyzing. You're not weak." He pressed his lips to my forehead, running his finger over my scar to the very bridge of my nose as he used to. Only he was much closer than he ever had been before, which made me tense. "Come on, you're one of the toughest mafiaso to ever live. You think that'sweak? Or do you think _I'm _weak?"

I shook my head. "I don't think either of those things." I tried moving my hand a bit, daring to rub my fingers lightly against his head. It seemed I got it right that time, because he smiled as I did it. "I guess I was wrong on some stuff."

"There's nothing wrong with being wrong either," he said, shaking his finger at me. "If you ever played video games you'd know that. You get stuff wrong all the time. When you do, you try again. And life is just one big game, isn't it?"

I smiled, chuckling a bit, my body relaxing. "I suppose it is."

He gave me my space and looked around briefly, then sighed in exasperation. "I lost the camera. How am I supposed to get pictures of you smiling if I don't have it?"

"You'll buy a new one tomorrow. Believe me, when I kill Airetsyh, you'll get enough pictures of me smiling to fill the whole thing."

…

I was up right at dawn the next morning, and while Matt was still asleep I slipped from the hotel and out onto the streets. Street vendors were still just getting set up, and I asked a few of them if they'd seen anyone by Airetsyh's description during the previous night. None of them had, but that didn't prove much to me. They weren't the kind of people to be out during the later hours of the night. I needed to question those who didn't believe in curfew.

I wasn't quite comfortable walking these streets, even with a gun in my jacket. I stuck out like a sore thumb, blond-haired, blue-eyed, and fair skinned, so I was a bit nervous as I made my way down backstreets and side alleys. There were enough thugs lurking about to fill a whole state prison, and I was very particular about who I approached to ask questions. I knew only a few Mexican gang signs, and many of the guys here were members of small-time crews. But I was able to recognize those that were members of larger gangs, and it was with them that I spoke. I could flash all the hand signals I wanted, but I was still a stranger on their turf and was careful to conduct myself appropriately.

A small group of three told me they may have seen Airetsyh. A man with shaggy blond hair on a motorcycle had passed through the previous night. They said he hadn't been wearing a business suit, but of course Airetsyh was far from incapable of changing his clothes. I knew it had only been a matter of time before he reached the city, so I didn't hesitate to take this as confirmation that he'd arrived.

I made sure to take home food for Matt, and passed him the news or our opponent's arrival. At the time I felt the only choice we had would be to wait for him to come to us. After all, we couldn't very well simply search the city for miles around for one person. He would come soon enough, that was certain, and if he didn't know where we were already, I doubted it would take him long to find out. The Camaro was a bit of a give-away.

However, Matt had a different idea in mind.

Matthew still had his cell phone on him, and he also had Airetsyh's number. If Matthew was cooperative, there was a chance we could lure Airetsyh out into the open. Even if he did come, he would probably be expecting an ambush, but if we were lucky we could at least speed up the confrontation. If he was as eager for this fight as I was, then chances were good that he'd show up.


	5. Chapter 5

_Warning: drug references and usage are taken up a notch here. _

_I realized at the last minute that I had to add more to this chapter, so I spent the morning adding in scenes and making sure everything still worked together. But with the editing on it now complete, here it is. Chapter 5 :)_

_Mello, Matt, L, Near, Kira/Light and the idea of Death Note belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata._

_Arik, Matthew, and Airetsyh were created by me._

_People and LIFE magazine belong to their creators as well, neither of which are me._

* * *

We waited until night had fallen, when the streets were lit dimly and only rarely did decent people venture out. Matt kept a vantage point from our hotel window, while I accompanied Matthew to the street. He seemed willing enough to do as I said, especially with a loaded gun being waved in his face, and he was quick to dial Airetsyh's number. He kept the phone on speaker so I could hear what was said and give him whispered instructions on how to answer.

Airetsyh picked up on the third ring. "What's the day?"

I frowned, but Matthew didn't hesitate to answer. "1, 28, 2010, until He is avenged." I recognized the numbers he gave as the date on which Kira had died.

"Where are you Matthew?"

"Go with the conversation, just try to get him to come over here or agree to meet him somewhere," I whispered. "I think you're smart enough to not say the wrong things." I pressed the gun against his side warningly.

"Mexico," said Matthew, without the slightest hint of emotion in his voice. "I followed the rebels here after they killed Arik."

There was a soft chuckle. "They got him, did they? To be expected from men of their caliber." There was a pause and the sound of crunching. M&Ms perhaps? He seemed to have a thing for them. "Is that the only reason you called?"

"Airetsyh, it would be best if we continued working together," said Matthew. "It is Our Lord's bidding that we bring His killers to justice, and our success is far more likely if we work together. Where are you now?"

The man laughed again, and the sound seemed to strangely echo around the street. That wasn't normal… "Closer than you think."

I immediately pressed myself back into the shadow of the building, insuring that no one could come at me from behind. My eyes darted from one end of the street to the other, but I could see no sign of him anywhere. Looking up to our hotel room window, I saw Matt still there, having gotten the hint from my behavior, and he was now surveying the street as well. I saw him shrug, and knew he couldn't see anyone around either. I held out my hand to Matthew, and he gave over the phone.

"Where are you?" I was barely able to keep myself from snarling.

"Close enough," he said. "You're finally giving me some entertainment Mihael; I have to thank you for that. Honestly, _killing _Arik. And don't think I didn't see your little invitation to me back there in the desert. But I'm not that easy a fish to hook. Really, facing off in the open? Ha! What fun is that?"

"Well pardon me for choosing a bad location."

"Oh, no need, no need. I've already set things up for us perfectly. The only piece I'm missing is you, but I think that will soon be remedied."

I cursed. He had more control of the situation than I did. Even with a captive, I still had no advantage. Airetsyh didn't care a bit for Matthew, and would sooner let him die than do what I wanted. I was used to having plenty to work with, but in this situation the only way I could damage the guy was to get to him directly.

"Then let's get this done," I said. "Face me."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement at the far end of the street. Turning quickly and bringing the gun up as I did, I immediately recognized the man who stood there. Airetsyh had abandoned his suit for all black, a t-shirt with cargo pants and boots, and he also no longer had his hair slicked, leaving it to hang loose to just below the tops of his ears. He was smirking as he came into view, just as he had been that day at the tavern. It was no surprise to me that he too was armed.

I thought for a moment I had the advantage now that he'd come into the open. After all, it was Matt and me against only him. But another moment's observation told me otherwise. He had more than just a gun on him. I noticed a suspicious looking object in his hand, and by the firm way he refused to move his thumb from pressing against its top, I guessed it was an explosive. A personality resembling mine indeed. He was nothing but a damn copycat. He held it up and waved it to me, as if daring me to try shooting him. He was a good two hundred yards away, and I found myself wondering how big that blast could be.

"Ready to play Mihael?" he called. "I've got the board set. I just need a second player." He began to back away, and I saw him glance up toward Matt, keeping careful aim on him from the hotel window. "But our game is for two players only. No one uninvited allowed." His eyes slowly shifted back to me, and in that instant Matthew grabbed me from behind, wrapping me up in a chokehold. I immediately moved the gun back to put a bullet through his head, at the same time giving him such a hard kick on the shin I'm surprised his leg didn't go numb.

"Don't you dare!" Airetsyh yelled to me, holding up the trigger in his hand. "I'll take us all up Mihael. Don't think this won't kill you. You hear that, boy?" He shouted up to Matt. "Do you see this dandy little situation? Throw down the gun, or we can all go up in flames!"

Matt hesitated, glancing at me worriedly, and I managed to choke out loud enough for him to hear, "Do it." Even from the street I could see his frustration as he let the gun drop down to the ground. I was beginning to see faces peering out of nearby windows curiously, but they were quick to dash back behind the curtains. They were probably used to see gang fights and stand-offs on these streets.

Airetsyh trotted over to pick up the gun. "_Damn_. I hate people coming uninvited!" He practically screamed the last word up to Matt. "Listen to me! If you interfere, this whole block goes up. Got it? Stay where you are and don't be a bother." Matt yelled down something far from complimentary, and Airetsyh just laughed, turning his attention back to me. "You too. Drop the gun."

Every bit of stubbornness in me screamed to hold onto that gun. Go ahead freak, blow me to bits and see if I care. I'll die with that gun still in my hand. Your little bomb stunt will be nothing but a temper tantrum because you didn't get your way. If it had been only me, I probably would have done that. I probably would have spit in his face and told him to go to hell, and sure, I'd go with him. But there was Matt standing in the hotel window, not daring to move because if he did it could cost me my life. I'd nearly gotten him killed once before already. I wasn't going to do it again. My fingers loosened, and the gun clattered onto the street.

"Very good," Airetsyh hummed a bit as he approached, a familiar tune but one I couldn't remember the name of. "Time for lights out, Mr. Keehl." I felt damp cloth pressed over my mouth by Matthew, and the instant I inhaled I realized what it was. Chloroform.

It was too late now. I felt my eyes closing, rolling back in my head. Damn it! How could this have happened? I'd miscalculated somewhere, something had gone wrong. What the hell was I missing?

I couldn't hold a solid thought anymore. My mind was slipping out of focus, reality was fading. Just like that, I was out.

…

I don't know how much later I woke. I was aware of my face pressed against something hard, and when I at last managed to wrench open my eyes, panic tore through me. I couldn't see a thing.

But no, no. I had to calm. I wasn't blind, but wherever I was had no light whatsoever. I got to my feet, feeling slightly dizzy, and I stepped back until I was pressed to the wall, sliding down to sit on the floor again. The wall felt as if it was made of metal, smooth, hard, and cold.

I made myself concentrate on breathing easily. I couldn't see, so I had to focus my other senses. Hearing, scent, touch. I was far from defenseless. I found my gun tucked beneath my belt and drew it up in my hand, running my fingers over it, and then opened it to count the bullets. Five were loaded, and I found I still had an extra box in my jacket pocket. Why hadn't these things been taken away? No sound was coming in from outside and there were no sounds inside but my own breathing. It was so terribly quiet that my ears were ringing.

I got up again, feeling my way around cautiously. The room was small, and the only difference I found in the solid walls was what seemed to be a door of steel bars. I called out, yet nothing answered me but my own echo.

There was nothing left to do but wait. I'd thought Airetsyh's game had begun back LA, but now…I realized it was only starting.

…

A good five minutes passed before I heard a faint sound coming from the distance. Though I'd spent every second since waking trying to calm myself down, all my work was made useless the second I heard that noise, like a door creaking on hinges. I was immediately on edge, anxious, eager to fight.

"Mihael," a voice suddenly echoed around the room, and by its slightly metallic sound I could tell it was coming to me through speakers of rather bad quality. It was slightly painful to hear, loud as it was. "Everything is ready now, the game can begin. I'd like to welcome you…to Hysteria!"

Flood lights flashed, forcing me to close my eyes against the sudden brightness. They went on and off chaotically, like camera flashes, allowing me only half-second glimpses of what lay around me when I dared open my eyes to slits. It seemed I could see strangely colored walls that were pressing uncomfortably close around me. The lights stopped after several long seconds, plunging me back into darkness.

"Now that you know the name of my game," Airetsyh's voice sounded again, "let me explain the rules." He cleared his throat. "Rule number one: don't be boring. Now, onto the goal of the game. You must reach the other side of this warehouse, get past me, get out, and still be alive to win. That is all. Game start."

A single bulb flashed on overhead, giving the room a dim yellow glow. I could hardly believe it. That was it? That was all he had to say to me? Why couldn't it be like how it was in the movies, where the bad guys conveniently explained everything? But I hardly had time to think on what he'd said. Where I found myself quickly distracted me.

The ceiling was about ten feet above my head, covered with bright flood lights that were no longer on. The room was perhaps six feet across and five feet in depth. Disturbingly close to the size of a jail cell, and it didn't help that the only way out, a dark narrow hallway, was separated from me by a gate of thick rusted steel bars. But those were the _normal _aspects of the place.

The walls were covered in newspaper clippings and magazine covers. As I looked closer, I realized they all had something in common: they all featured an article on some form of insanity. From "Inside the Mind of a Psychopath" on LIFE magazine to "Which Celebrity Has Lost It This Time?" on People, it was endless. Year's worth of articles had been pasted on these walls.

Of course there were no clues as to where I was, and it seemed Airetsyh wasn't keen on telling me. So this was his game. Hysteria…I suppose it fit the place. It didn't take me long to realize that the one thing that _had _been taken from me was my cell phone. No calling Matt, or the police. No one "uninvited".

If Airetsyh wanted it that way, so be it. I could kill him on my own.

Now, how was I to get through the door? It was quite firmly locked, and though the keyhole was on the inside there was no key I could see. An idea came to me, and I began tearing the papers off the walls, revealing plain concrete brick walls beneath. This was the only place it could be hidden, and as I expected, it didn't take me long to find it. The key tumbled out as I tore down a large section of newspaper, covered with a large article on mental illness. As I looked down at the paper now lying at my feet, the key in my hand, I saw a small bit of writing at the end of the article. "If you or a loved one are suffering from mental illness and need help, please call." The phone number had been highlighted.

That struck me as somewhat suspicious, so I folded up the paper and put it in my pocket on a whim. The number had been made obvious to me for a reason, and even if it wouldn't be of any use to me there was no harm in taking it. I unlocked the door, and as I stepped into the hall the light flickered off behind me, and one came on ahead. I hesitated to go foreword, considering the situation carefully. Airetsyh had said the only rule was to not be boring, so the man was in this basically for the entertainment. However, if I was going to be amusing to him I had to be doing something, most likely something difficult. It seemed like it would be his style to have traps set up, and this hall was the perfect place for some. I examined the ceiling first of all, then the floor, then the walls, making sure to cover the least likely places first. After all, Airetsyh was far from predictable. But I found nothing. No strange cracks in the concrete floor, no mysterious objects mounted near the ceiling, and the walls were utterly bare. However, I was quite sure I could see a doorway on the left side at the end of the hall, and I went ahead toward it.

The hall's light went off as soon as I reached the doorway, and one came on instead in the room ahead. The door I'd entered through shut automatically and I heard the soft click as it locked. The site of this room was, to say the least, not what I expected. But of course, that in itself wasn't so very _un_expected was it?

It was a padded room, which had been scrawled upon all over with bright paint and markers. Neon pink, green, orange, and yellow, forming big bubbly letters and peace symbols. There was a small table in the middle of the room with a little single burner stove upon it. Beside it sat a pot of water, a box of baking soda, a needle, spoon, and bags of powdery cocaine.

It was in this room that I first noticed cameras perched in the corners, as well as speakers and small microphones. So not only was he watching me, but if I made any noise, he would probably be able to hear it. There was another door barring my way, locked, with the keyhole once more on the inside. Upon closer inspection, I discovered it was an older, simpler lock, the kind that was fairly easy to pick if one was experienced enough.

"The seventies were an interesting time weren't they, Mihael?" Airetsyh's voice sounded over the speakers once more. "So much going on, so much change. Everything unpredictable, chaotic really. The seventies were a sort of hysteria, wouldn't you say? And drugs, well, they created a very real form of insanity not only in the addictions they caused, but in their affect upon the human body. When was the last time you were high?"

"I never have been," I said, wishing I had a specific something I could glare at. What I'd said wasn't quite true, as I'd been around enough people who were using to sometimes get a little stoned myself, but it had never been intentional. "I prefer to have control over myself."

"Oh? Do you indeed? Well, then I suggest you get yourself out of this room as quickly as possible. It would be awfully unfortunate for you to have your mind clouded, especially at a time like this. If you _did _allow that to happen, you'd probably forget what you need to do. You might even start relaxing. And that isn't allowed. It would be breaking the rule. As it's no fun playing with people who won't honor the rules of the game, I would have to…remove you."

There was a soft click as the speakers turned off, and I noticed a small vent slide open on each of the four walls. The room began to fill with a light scent that steadily grew stronger, and then I recognized it as what it was. Marijuana. Somewhere close by, large amounts of the drug were being burned to release the scent into this room. I pulled off my shirt, tying it around my nose in hopes that it would at least dull the drug's effects and give me more time to think. My only way out was the door ahead, but the knives I carried were too large to fit in the hole to pick the lock, and I had nothing else that could work for this job.

Or…did I?

I'd made crack cocaine before while I was with the mafia, since we sold it for profit, and I knew that it could be molded to basically any shape one wanted after it was heated and drawn out of the water with the needle. Of course the usual shape was small "rocks", but what if I wanted to make something different? Something with which I could pick a lock?

Already beginning to feel slightly euphoric, I turned on the burner, bringing the water in the pot up to a boil and adding the baking soda and cocaine. When the drug had been reduced to glistening oil on the surface I drew it out, rolling it quickly in my hands before it could dry. When I'd used up most of the powder left there, I had three slim rods, about 3 and 1/2 inches long and tapered to a point. I could only hope they didn't all break on me before I managed to open the door.

The smoke was thick in the room now, and I was beginning to have trouble keeping myself focused. I set to work, breaking the tips off the first and second stick before finishing the job with the third. The door opened, and I stumbled out into the fresher air in the hall beyond, shutting it again behind me.

I untied the shirt from around my mouth, sitting down against the wall and breathing deeply. I had to shake off this feeling in my head. I couldn't afford to be the slightest bit clumsy now. But even pausing here to rest was a risk. If I waited too long to move on, I could end up breaking the rule. I clenched my fists furiously as I thought of it. I certainly didn't want to be a bore for dear Airetsyh.

I went ahead at last, toward the next doorway at the end of the hall. I braced myself for more insanity before I even came to it, and was glad I had when I reached it. Instead of newspaper clippings and magazine covers pasted on these walls, it was instead photographs of women in various states of undress. Okay, yes, it was porn. There was no door to keep me from getting out of this room. Just an empty doorway, leading into the dark space beyond. Not another hall, but just a large empty space, as far as I could tell.

Only one small obstacle stood in the way of my proceeding: a large jack-in-the-box about a foot tall, its box colorfully printed with pictures of baby ducks and rabbits. I'm sure I made a terribly strange face at it when I first saw it, but I couldn't help it. It was so completely random, an innocent child's toy sitting in a room filled with pictures of barely dressed women.

As I began to approach it, its handle slowly started turning, the little tune beginning, and I recognized it as what Airetsyh had been humming back on the streets before I'd been knocked out.

_All around the Mulberry Bush_

_The Monkey chased the Weasel._

Acting on instinct, I moved myself away from standing directly in front of the thing, my eyes widening as I saw what followed. The box turned to face me again dead-on, and I noticed that it was sitting on a round section of floor that was causing it to rotate. However that made it no less unnerving, and I ended up flattening myself to the ground in an effort put myself out of its shot radius, if it had one.

_The monkey stopped to pull up his sock,_

_Pop! Goes the weasel._

Up came the lid, making me flinch slightly in anticipation, but there was no need. The jack came up, and with it came a little keyboard with two small screens above it. The first seemed to have a sentence upon it, and the second was counting down from three minutes in big red numbers.

I crawled forward, a sense of urgency gripping me immediately. I didn't want to find out what would happen when time ran out. The sentence on the first screen read, "What is the day?"

Without thinking, I quickly put in the date. However, when I pressed Enter the time jumped down to one and a half minutes remaining, and a line of bullets peppered the wall several feet above my head. Had I been standing, they would have torn right through me.

"What a foolish answer Mihael!" said Airetsyh, laughing over the speakers. "Do you remember the cute little warnings Arik used to give you? Little riddles and such? So nice and pleasant, weren't they? Well, I didn't like his style. _This _is my kind of warning. It has a thrill to it, doesn't it? Gets your heart beating a little faster." Glancing behind me, I saw where the bullets had come from, and that below the first row of holes they'd shot out of were two more. If all three went off at once, there would be nowhere I could go to avoid getting shot. I had a feeling that was what would happen if I let time run out.

I felt like hitting myself. I should have known the answer could never be so simple. Of course the question would be cryptic. What was the day…a holiday? Birthday? Deathday?

Deathday…Kira's followers…until the day He is avenged…

I quickly typed in 1, 28, 2010, and as soon as I pressed the Enter key the jack disappeared back into the box, the lid closing. I thought it was over, but as I got up and tried to step over it, volts of electricity shot across in front of me, making me jump back.

The little tune began again. Up came the jack once more on the _Pop! _and with it came another question: "What did the first killings tell?"

The time on the clock was three minutes once more, and I forced myself to close my eyes. Forget the clock, forget this place, and forget Airetsyh. Concentrate, concentrate. The first killings…the mafia bosses in LA…did they tell something? Jeremiah's death…he was one of the first wasn't he? No, no. In order. First to be killed was Nathaniel Young on March 1st, then Benjamin on the 2nd. William Aro on the 8th of May, Jeremiah Rost on the 10th. 1st, 2nd, 8th, 10th….the days…1 2 8 10…1, 28, 10…1, 28, 2010…the day Kira died…

Time was running out, I knew it was. But I didn't dare look at how much was left. It would only make me more anxious and distract my mind. Think…there had to be more to it…what did the killings say? The dates meant something, so maybe…

Nathanial Young on the 1st. 1st letter was N…

Benjamin on the 2nd. 2nd letter was E…

William Aro…8th letter was A

Jeremiah Rost. 10th letter was…O?

No, that couldn't be it. I was wrong somewhere. What was it? What had I missed? There was more, something deeper in the puzzle.

N, E, A…I could only guess. I _had_ to guess. I typed in "Near", and hit enter.

The clock stopped with 2 seconds remaining, and I sighed heavily with relief. The killings told only a warning: Near's name as a threat to him, much as the chocolate had been a threat to me. Now that my mind was calmer with relief, I realized how it must have worked: For Nathaniel, only his first initial was needed. For Benjamin, his whole first name. For William Aro, first and last name. For Jeremiah, it had to be that his middle initial was added to the equation.

The tune for the box didn't start again, and when I tried to pass it nothing stopped me. The light went off behind me, the one ahead flickered on, and I entered into the final room.

* * *

_A little note on this version of "Pop! Goes the Weasel": I looked it up on Wikipedia, and evidently there are multiple versions of it. I'm pretty sure I used the British version, since I thought it was the most likely one for Mello to have learned._

_Also, I've never made/used/been around/touched cocaine. All my info comes from Wiki._


	6. Chapter 6

_So there I was sailing along through the story, and then BAM! I'm coming up on the ending and panicking because I know have to fill in information for not only this story but AU: Face as well. I was teetering on the verge of a disgustingly huge info-dump, and I really tried to give all the information in a way that was as easy and non-overwhelming as possible. I hope I didn't fail!_

_Mello, Matt, L, Near, Kira/Light and the idea of Death Note belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata._

_Arik, Matthew, and Airetsyh were created by me._

* * *

This space was by far bigger than the other rooms., or so it seemed. Then again, it was hard to tell, considering there was nothing but mirrors all around. The walls, ceiling, and floor were mirrors, though the floor was kept beneath a layer of clear plastic to prevent it from shattering when it was stepped upon. The room I'd just left was barred from me, another mirror sliding down from within the wall to cover the doorway. I was left knowing Airetsyh couldn't possibly have done this on his own, and I remembered how Matthew had aided him in taking me. Had he and Matthew had an alliance all along? Perhaps even before Arik was killed? This place certainly had Airetsyh's general vibe of insanity and chaos about it, but it was also stamped with Matthew's tech-smarts.

"You've reached the final arena," Airetsyh's voice came to me, and this time it wasn't over any speakers. Though I couldn't see him, he was close enough for me to hear him clearly without having to shout, and my finger moved to press eagerly against my gun's trigger. "I must congratulate you Mihael. But I expected no less. You obeyed the rule quite well." He laughed. "I wasn't bored. But this is the end, isn't it? Can you get past me and out alive? I honestly don't think you can."

It seemed I saw someone run past to my left, and I threw out a fist automatically. But I hit only glass, shattering it into millions of cracks that caused the reflections in some of the other mirrors to be disrupted as well. I hissed in pain, my fist dripping blood. Damn it, where was he?

"Are you feeling it yet?" It was almost as if I felt breath on my neck, but when I whirled about there was nothing. These wretched mirrors were playing tricks with my head. "Hysteria? It's the name of the game, it's my name as well, and it'll be yours soon too. Do you know what you've been seeing all this time? Do you? Do you understand? Do you _comprehend_, Mr. Keehl?" He burst into laughter again, sounding near hysterical himself. "You think you're so clever to have had a hand in killing Kira! You're not! You're wrong! You may have ended Light Yagami's life, but Kira will never die. Kira is a god, He is immortal! He lives on in his heirs."

I was pretty sure I could hear the jack-in-the-box's tune again, echoing around the room. Everywhere I looked was the same. Same below, same above; it was dizzying. There had to be something I could use to steady myself, to maintain a sense of direction. But by that time I couldn't even be sure where the entry to the previous room had been.

"Don't think you're the first to play here," he said, his voice low. "For nearly five years now I've been ever seeking new challengers. It started with dares, when my friends and I were bored. We tested each other to our very limits. But merely surviving physical stresses is not any great feat. Nearly any body can be trained to survive. But what of the mind? How much can it endure? I attended college close to here, and my friends and I would come to this warehouse for our games. Over time we began setting up a maze of sorts, constructing traps and riddles, challenging each other. And then came Kira."

The mirrors began to rotate, as if they were on tracks. The reflections flying past, the glass tipped slightly at all different angles, constantly giving me a different view. It was literally nauseating. My first instinct was to close my eyes to shut it out, but how could I risk that? Airetsyh was close by, and he could easily take advantage the second I let my guard down.

"Kira was playing the most brilliant little game of his own," said Airetsyh. "And he found his perfect opponent: L. I never worshipped him; he was more of an idol. I knew I could be just as deadly in my own game as he could in his. I just needed the right rival. Then I found out about _you_ and, well…the rest is history. The way you held off police by threatening a suicide bombing…truly a classic. Not only are you bold, but you're wretchedly proud. That shall make it oh-so-much sweeter when you lose. So come on! Try to kill me!"

Then there he was, standing directly in front of me, his arms held wide in invitation, weaponless. I brought up the gun, fired one shot…and glass shattered in all directions. Damn it! Nothing but a reflection! Then where was he? Which was the real him? I could see him in at least ten mirrors around me, laughing, waiting, taunting me. "Kill me Mihael! Aren't you clever enough? Don't you understand this?"

After the third shot I nearly threw down the gun in frustration. There was no understanding this place! That was the thing of it! It was Hysteria, it was madness, insanity! There could be no understanding insanity! _No one_ could understand it, not even those who were afflicted with it!

No…no, that wasn't right. There _were _people who could understand it. Doctors, therapists. There were people one could go to, people one could call…

A phone number…

I pulled the newspaper clipping out of my pocket. The highlighted phone number, directing one toward people who could help, who would understand. A therapist would understand this. What would they look for? What would they see in this mess of insanity? They would see depth, meaning, a past, and a life…_his _life. Airetsyh's life behind all the insanity, the very cause of his insanity…

"It's your life," I said, making his taunting and laughter abruptly die. "Everything I've seen here! It's all a part of your life." I thought hard, filling in the details as quickly as I could. I had to throw him off guard. "The first room was a prison cell. You did something bad when you were young, didn't you? Did you kill someone, or try to? They locked you up, and some of them said you were insane. That's all you ever heard from them, wasn't it? That you were crazy! But they made a mistake. They put you in jail when you should have gone into therapy. You knew it, didn't you? You knew jail time wasn't helping. If you could have, you would have called this number, right?" I held up the clipping, and still there was no response from him. His reflection had disappeared from the mirrors as well. "When you got out of jail, you had nothing left. Your family had abandoned you. Your life was empty, just like the hallway. There was nothing. So you tried to find friends. Did they say you'd be happy, Airetsyh, these 'friends' of yours? The second room seemed to promise peace and happy things, but the only way out was the drugs. They got you hooked. You bought so much you ran out of money and couldn't get away. But even though the drugs kept you there, in the end they managed to get you out. You started selling them and made plenty of money, and were able to get away from wherever you were living. Junky streets, thugs. You got away. Or you thought you did."

There was a muffled sound, something like a snarl of frustration followed by a curse. He appeared again, his reflection visible in the dozens of mirrors in front of me, his face contorted with hatred. I smirked back. "I'm right, aren't I? You thought you'd moved on after that, but your life was empty again, just like the second hallway. You were lonely. Maybe you tried to fall in love. You had plenty of women in your life, didn't you? And it was only then, years later, that you realized your innocence was shattered, that no matter how hard you tried you could never get back what you'd lost. You couldn't make things right." I thought of the jack-in-the-box. "Time had already run out for your childhood."

"You're wrong," he hissed viciously, his dozens of face snarling at me all at once. I shook my head.

"No Airetsyh. _You're _wrong. I know what this final room is. It's what you are now. Now, you reflect all your past wrongs. Now, you reflect Kira. Maybe you were too scared to approach any _real _God for repentance, so you turned to a college boy who liked to play judge. Since all your life you've been made to think you were worthless, you became obsessed with these games of yours. You could win at these, and when you did it made you feel like you had some worth. You've been ever seeking to prove yourself better. And you're trying to reflect _me_, aren't you? I've been told you and I are alike, and maybe in some ways we are. But truthfully, I just think you're pathetic. You're just envious of me. I have what you never did. Hell, I'm one happy person to be honest, and you're miserable."

And, now that I thought about it, that was true. I _was _happy. I had a lot of things to be happy about. The thought made my mind wander a bit, and I got to thinking of Matt, wondering if he was close by. Had they taken him captive as well, or had Airetsyh simply been too distracted to bother with him? Maybe he was looking for me, or maybe he already knew where I was and was just waiting for me to kick this guy's ass so we could leave. I was more than happy to do so.

"That's it, Airetsyh," I said. "You aren't a very hard guy to figure out. So are you ready to end it? I beat your game."

"Wrong!" at the same moment he yelled the word at me I heard the sound of a gunshot, and pain tore through my shoulder. It was like hard fire going all the way through me, and I cried out before I could stop myself, clutching at the wound as blood splattered across the floor. I turned around, trying to find him, only to be struck in the face by his fist. "You're wrong! Fool! You mean to say you're better than me, that you have what I can't?" He pinned me to the floor, forcing the gun out of my hand and flinging it away to shatter another one of the mirrors. With that mirror gone I finally got a glimpse of the rest of the warehouse beyond them. He jerked me up by the collar of my shirt. "You haven't won!" he said. "Not by far! You had to get past me and get out alive to win, Mihael! And you can't! _I've _won! I-"

He cut off with a small sound, as if he were choking. I suppose that's what one does when they're stabbed in the neck with a sharpened stick of cocaine. I found myself glad that, back in the second room, I'd acted without thinking and just put the last one in my pocket when I was done with it.

"What were you saying?" I said, my teeth clenched with pain as I shoved him off me with my good arm. He stumbled back, clutching at the cocaine in his neck. "I don't lose, Airetsyh. And I _do _play dirty." He lunged to his feet, coming for me again, his strength surprisingly undiminished. I struggled to keep him back, and he managed to get a hold on my throat, squeezing hard enough to cut off my air. But he was bleeding heavily, and I could feel his muscles weakening. Before long I could breathe again and was able to push him away. I picked up the gun from where he'd thrown it, moving my arm back and taking aim. "Kira did die. And all his trash should go with him."

It only took one shot to finish it.

…

I got out alive. I won the game. Emotional as I may be sometimes, I suppose hysteria never really had any hold over me.

I'd thrown open the warehouse doors and stumbled out into the sand to find it still dark out, and I was so tired I just lay down right where I was. It looked like I was back in New Mexico or Arizona; this warehouse was a really old structure, and seemed to be one of the last intact buildings of an old mining town, nestled up against hills peppered with mine shafts. My breath was coming a little hard, and I realized the bleeding from my shoulder hadn't stopped. The bullet had gone straight through, and the pain was radiating all the way down my arm to my fingertips.

As I lay there looking up at the stars, wondering if I should bother to move or if I should just fall asleep, a soft and distant sound came to me. A little tune…what was it? A cell phone?

I managed to get to my feet, making my way around the warehouse to its front, where I found my cell abandoned in the dirt. I'd missed the last call, but as I picked it up another one came in. It was Matt's number.

I flipped it open. "Yeah?"

I suppose his babbling on the other end was supposed to signify relief. I couldn't keep track of all he said since he was talking so fast, alternating between cussing out Airetsyh and asking if I was okay. He promised he'd kill the guy, and told me to not go anywhere. He said something about Matthew staying behind to guard him, but evidently the guy was an idiot (or, as I suspected, Matt just refused to allow himself to be held captive). I just sat back against the warehouse wall, smiling as I closed my eyes and listened to him talk. I didn't bother to tell him Airetsyh was already dead; I didn't feel like talking. But Matt did, and he kept running his mouth right up until he pulled up in front of me.

I laughed a bit when he looked stricken over my arm, and didn't protest when he carried me to the car, even though I could have walked well enough on my own. His face was bruised, and when I happened to glance in the car's backseat I saw Matthew there, looking as if he'd been hit by a train. Matt kept fussing over my arm, taking off his shirt and pressing it to the wound to slow the bleeding and continually asking if I felt lightheaded. I did, but that was fine. I didn't mind. This was something Airetsyh couldn't have, something I would never have let him take from me. Maybe I should have pitied the guy. But I was a bit too busy feeling good about myself to do so.

"Where is the bastard?" said Matt, turning my face back and forth, checking my eyes, and looking me all over as if he was some kind of doctor that actually knew what he was doing. "I swear I'll kill him for this!"

He was so furious he wasn't really paying attention to me, so I had to grab his face to make him look at me. "Look," I said. "Shut up. Airetsyh is dead. I killed him."

He frowned a moment. "Really?"

"Damn right really," I said. "Do you think I'd let him mess up my arm like this and get away with it? I'm no pushover."

He smiled at last. "I know you're not. But you had me a little concerned when you let yourself get kidnapped."

I rolled my eyes. "I let that happen all the time. You know just last week some red-head threatened me with a gun and told me to get in his car, and I could have gotten him arrested but I just played along. You know, to make him think he was in charge for a while."

"Sure you did," he closed my door, walking around to get in the driver's seat. "Maybe that guy should remain in charge for a bit longer, at least long enough to get you to a hospital."

…

In all, I guess it was case closed.

As much as I hate doctors and tend to avoid them at all costs, I was glad to have one in this situation. Turned out that the bullet had hit the bone in my arm and cracked it pretty good. That, paired with significant blood loss, meant that I'd be in bed for a while. I hated the idea, especially since there was still plenty that had to be done.

First of all, I had to contact L and Near, because I wasn't going to leave any loose ends this time and wanted to make sure it was really over. Two bodies and a captive can cause a lot of drama, and I needed someone with enough authority to keep Matt and me out of prison. We had a round the clock guard around our room, and it really took a lot of talking on our part to convince the police not to take Matt away right then to sit in a jail cell until the case was taken to court. Fortunately Near and L didn't waste time getting there. Though they arrived in the middle of the night and passed themselves off to almost everyone but a select few doctors and the police as relatives, bail bonds were arranged and paid for, so Matt and I remained free, temporarily at least. Meanwhile evidence had to be gathered for court, so Halle, Gevanni, and Rester were soon out as well. I'll have you know it was maddening to be stuck in bed while so much was going on, but at least Matt was there to keep me sane. He was tense, since it seemed his future was now either prison or working with L and Near, so he wasn't quite his usual self. But it was enough for me. I'd spend the days trying to shout orders while he reminded me that I wasn't in charge. The few times I tried to get myself out of the room he made sure I couldn't. When he told me what had happened after Airetsyh had taken me away, I found that I had been right in assuming he'd been too distracted to make sure Matt was kept secured. He'd just left Matthew to take care of it on his own, probably assuming that Matt would behave just because his captor had a gun. Yeah. Right. If I were Matt I would have felt insulted to be written-off like that.

All the while, I couldn't help wondering about Airetsyh. It was bothering me how many times he easily could have killed me, yet never had. Every time we'd met he had the advantage. And I began to wonder…maybe… in some twisted way he'd wanted me to kill him. Maybe to him, that would have been the ultimate proof of his worth. He viewed me as a rival, someone skilled enough to face him. Perhaps, in his mind, if I bothered to try so hard to kill him, it proved that he'd made his mark, that he was dangerous, that he had some effect on the world. Maybe to him, it proved someone was paying attention.

L and Near spent some time in my room as well, asking questions pertaining to the case, and eventually I got them talking to fill in the blanks for me.

"We moved headquarters not long after you left," said Near, stacking the little plastic containers of fruit jelly on my food tray. The kid blended right in here, looking as white as the freaking bed sheets. "We found the messages the killers had hidden, and thought it best to relocate after that."

"And those messages were…what?" said Matt, who had curled himself up on a chair in the corner next to the bed, looking as uncomfortable around the other two as a cat around dogs.

"First, we noticed my alias hidden in the first four victim's names. Then there was the messages left at the sight of Jeremiah's murder. In the second one, if you took the first word of each sentence, you'd get 'The heirs die next'. We're pretty sure the killers hadn't known our exact location from the start, so when we moved they lost track of us completely. They followed after the two of you with the intention of taking care of me later."

"So far, during interrogations with the police, Matthew hasn't mentioned me as being alive," said L. He'd gotten into the box of chocolate bars I kept near my bed and hadn't bothered to ask for permission to take some. "So, luckily, I don't think we have to worry about word getting out that 'L' is alive. They were after my successors only, and were convinced that I had died."

As for Vincent, the weapon's supplier back in LA, his side of things came out in the weeks that followed as the investigation continued. The reason he'd lied to me about the shipment being delivered at the White Tiger was because of Jeremiah. The man had taken precautionary measures and bribed Vinny to lie about the shipment to get me where J could have me easily killed. He and Jeremiah had therefore been in close contact; if J ever went out, Vincent would know about it. Unfortunately for him, he was now on his way to court on charges of illegally selling military weapons. Knowing him, he'd easily survive whatever sentence he got and probably go right back to what he'd been doing before.

As for the man who had shown up at the White Tiger after Jeremiah had left that night, he had been an assassin meant to kill me, but he'd noticed the bombs Airetsyh had planted around the building and had left before carrying out his mission. Airetsyh had also been the one to move my car from where I'd originally had it parked. With him dead, I suppose his reasons for that will remain unknown.

As for Matthew working with Airetsyh, he eventually admitted to police that they'd known each other before either of them met Arik. Having known each other longer, they were bound to be closer, and though Matthew shared Arik's ideals, he was willing to help Airetsyh with his work, which included preparing the warehouse and shutting down the security lock on the hotel room Matt and I had been staying in when Airetsyh cut Matt's hair. The chloroform Matthew used when they'd taken me had been used when killing Arik's last victims. Though we'd searched him for any weapons, he'd kept small plastic packets of chloroform hidden in tiny pockets on the inside of his sleeve cuffs, and thumb tacks were sewn into the fabric near them. Putting a firm application of pressure to the thumb tacks broke the plastic and released the liquid onto his sleeves. This method aided in avoiding any suspicious movements before knocking out a victim.

The hands in the Camaro's trunk and the blood used to write on the back window were eventually linked to various murders that had taken place in California. The victims had all been smalltime criminals.

…

Several weeks later the whole affair was practically settled. Matt and I were back in LA, living under L's supervision, and Matthew was on his way to jail, along with Vincent and several mafia members. The police hadn't been happy that Matt and I were to remain "free", but the combined of authority of both L _and _Near had been enough to convince them, for now. But anymore trouble from us, and we'd both be in prison.

Therefore our lives now consisted only of headquarters, day and night. We weren't allowed to go out, and our purpose there was to aid in any cases that came up. I suppose I was thankful L kept us from being locked away, but I was already missing just driving in the Camaro and living life without really caring. It was odd, for I'd never thought I'd enjoy such a lifestyle.

Matt stayed really quiet in those days, remaining in a serious mood for much longer than I'd ever seen him. We still shared living quarters, but not a bed, and it took me several nights of adjustment to get used to him not being there. I kept searching for my old self, trying to find the tense care-about-nobody attitude that had served me just fine for so long, yet it might as well have died with Airetsyh.

Perhaps it had.

* * *

_And do you honestly think I'd end it there? Look at that, I have put up a chapter AND an epilogue!_


	7. Epilogue

_Wow, this story ended up over 40 pages long! I'm so glad you've all read this far :) Thank you so much for all the reviews, it's really such a joy for me to read them!_

_Before you begin the epilogue, you just have to know: I never would have gotten this ending if it hadn't been for a wonderful MattxMello YouTube video, by xTowardTheSunx. Seriously, you MUST watch this video after you've finished reading! It's called Matt x Mello The Great Escape. The video features some of the best shonen-ai pics of Matty and Mel I've ever seen, and the music is perfect. So go watch it!_

_Mello, Matt, L, Near, Kira/Light and the idea of Death Note belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata._

_Arik, Matthew, and Airetsyh were created by me._

_Lyrics to the song The Great Escape belong to Boys Like Girls._

* * *

It was around three o' clock in the morning, in the very middle of August, when Matt woke me up and told me we were leaving. From May to August; that was how long it had taken him to hack HQ's systems and allow us to leave. Once again we took nothing with us and left everything but each other behind. Just us and the Camaro.

We were all set to go, pulling out from HQ's underground parking garage and out onto the streets, when I noticed we had a one-man audience. It was L, standing just beside the exit and watching us as he chewed his thumbnail. Matt slowed the car as we passed him by, and I rolled down my window.

"Will you try to catch us?" I said. He leaned down toward me suddenly, putting his face close to mine.

"This is illegal activity," he said. "I'm not allowed to let you leave." I saw Matt tense beside me, ready to tear out onto the street if he had to, but L just turned away. "Therefore, I suppose I wasn't out here this morning, I didn't happen to see you leave, and it will be terribly shocking when I discover the computer systems are hacked." He began to walk away from us, calling back. "I'm sure I won't want to avoid warrants being put out for your arrest, but if you two happened to leave the country, well…" I saw him shrug. "There isn't really anything I can do, because I wasn't out here this morning."

I smiled. "Thanks L."

"I can't hear you Mihael-kun, I'm still in my room."

…

"So, where to?"

"Wherever you want. I don't care."

"_Really_? Now there's something new, Mello not jumping at the chance to make a decision. But alright, I'll choose. I've always wanted to see Paris. Australia would be nice too. Lots of beaches there…"

My smile still hadn't faded. Every chain that had ever tethered me was falling away. It was a feeling like being on top of the world. It was passion, ready to completely explode with the rush of just being alive. No more boundaries, no more authority. I glanced over at Matt, who had a small smile on his face as his hand held the steering wheel in a loose, lazy way. I considered pausing to think a moment, to consider…but changed my mind. Sometimes it was nice to act without thinking.

I kissed him. Forget that we were driving; the streets were pretty clear anyway. Anyone who _did _happen to be on the road would just have to move. The whole time I really tried to focus on avoiding what he considered to be kink, none of it, nope, can't do it…

It was a nice try. My teeth got his lip anyway as I pulled away. Well, I'd done my best at least. Hm. He really didn't taste like ash anymore. He began to laugh a little, shaking his head as he glanced over at me.

"You know what?" I said, completely defiant in the face of his laughter. "To hell with being proper. In fact, I _hate _that word. You should be thankful I even consider you worth my time. I don't just hand out kisses left and right to the world. You know I'm endangering myself getting anywhere near your mouth? It's full of bacteria; I'm probably going to get all kinds of viruses-"

"Mello," he held back his laughter a moment to speak. "If I gave a damn about being proper, I wouldn't be living off one lung, have warrants out for my arrest, and be driving a car with bullet holes in it." Back the laughter came, and before I even realized it was far more infectious than anything to be found in his mouth, I was joining in.

About half a mile further along, with our laughter quieted, Matt turned on the radio, beginning to bounce his head along with the music.

_Let's get drunk and ride around_

_  
And make peace with an empty town_

_  
We can make it right_

This time, he didn't have to encourage me to sing along.

_Tonight will change our lives_

_  
It's so good to be by your side_

_  
But we'll cry_

_  
We won't give up the fight_

_  
We'll scream loud at the top of our lungs_

_  
And they'll think it's just cause we're young_

_  
And we'll feel so alive_

Throw it away

_  
Forget yesterday_

_  
We'll make the great escape_

_  
We won't hear a word they say_

_  
They don't know us anyway_

_  
Watch it burn_

_  
Let it die_

_  
Cause we are finally free tonight!_


End file.
